Edmond O'Brien

Frank Bigelow walks into a police station and says he wants to report a murder: his own. The film then rewinds to show how he got there. Frank, a small-town accountant, is in San Francisco for a few days and is slipped a luminous poison in a drink at a bar. A doctor tells him he has only days to live and no cure exists, and Frank spends his remaining hours trying to find out who killed him and why. The premise, a man investigating his own murder, is one of the tightest hooks in film noir. Rudolph Maté had been a cinematographer before he directed, and the film has a clean, hard look. The story ties Frank's death to a routine bill of sale he notarized, a small thing with large consequences. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Noir · Thriller

Two friends on a fishing trip in Mexico pick up a hitchhiker who turns out to be a wanted killer on the run. He forces them to drive him toward the border and lets them know that as soon as they stop being useful he will kill them. The hitchhiker has a paralyzed eye that never closes, even when he sleeps, so the two men can never tell when it is safe to try an escape. The film is based on the real-life case of Billy Cook, who killed several people on a similar spree. Ida Lupino directed, one of the few women directing Hollywood features at the time, and she keeps the film tight and tense, almost entirely inside the car. The film is a lean, real-time thriller about men trapped with someone who has nothing to lose. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Noir · Thriller